Yves Engler

The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper's Foreign Policy

by Yves Engler

(Fernwood Publishing co-published with Red Publishing,

2012;

$19.95)

For a long time now, there has been a serious weakness on the part of progressive movements in the most over-developed countries of the world. The ability to recognize that so much of the privileges we enjoy, but that governments and corporations enjoy even more so, comes from years of exploitation, subjugation and extreme levels of violence towards countries of the Global South, but too often, our history and continued practice of imperialism is either forgotten or ignored. In The Ugly Canadian, Yves Engler sets out to provide "a small spark in lighting a fire of interest in Canadian foreign policy."

Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt

by Yves Engler

(Fernwood Publishing,

2012;

$15.95)

In his new book, Yves Engler sets to demolish the near saintly status of Lester Bowles ("Mike") Pearson in the public sphere, Canadian foreign policy circles and even on the social democratic left. And in the process, he takes on the much repeated slogan that "the world needs more of Canada."

Much like Noam Chomsky who provides a forward to Lester Pearson's Peacekeeping, the author relies mostly on the excellent but largely unread scholarship plus the former PM's own statements in Parliament and in memos to successfully establish a case.

Don't

Power: Where is it?

by Donald J. Savoie

(McGill-Queen's University Press,

2010;

$29.95)

Someone reading People magazine might conclude that Tom Cruise and Sandra Bullock run Hollywood. While they're certainly influential, so are the directors and producers behind the scenes as well as the financiers and studios that decide what films get made. To truly understand the movie industry, one should investigate the cultural context from which it operates and the economic principles that drive it, divorced from any individual.

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Stephen Harper’s foreign policy documents the sordid story of the Canadian government’s sabotage of international environmental efforts, a government totally committed to tar sands producers and a mining industry widely criticized for abuses. Furthermore, this sweeping critique details Harper’s opposition to the “Arab Spring” democracy movement and his backing of repressive Middle East monarchies, as well as his support for a military coup in Honduras and indifference to suffering of Haitians following the earthquake that devastated their country.

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Written in the form of a submission to an imagined " Truth and Reconciliation Commission" about Canada's foreign policy during the Lester B. Pearson era, this book will change your mind about Canada's most famous statesman . Rather than an " honest broker," or " peacekeeper, " Pearson was an ardent cold warrior, who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of U.S. intervention in Canadian political affairs, the Nobel Peace laureate provided important support to the U.S. during the Vietnam war and advocated sending troops to the American-led war in Korea. Pearson helped construct the post World War 11 US-empire.